Croonian Lecture:—On the mechanism of heredity

Abstract

Several years ago I ventured to state that with the demonstration of the wide applicability of Mendel’s two laws, and with the later discoveries of linkage and of crossing-over, the traditional problem of heredity had been solved. On account of this statement, I have been rebuked for arrogantly affirming that there was nothing more to be learned about heredity! Perhaps I had given less offence if I had made clear that I realised, as fully as another, that these discoveries in heredity were of such a sort that a whole new world for investigation opened before us. My critics, however,, attempted to put me in the wrong by pretending that I implied that there were no new worlds to conquer. It may, therefore, not be out of place to attempt to show how the solution of the traditional problem of heredity has led to further discoveries, and has given us a glimpse at least of still newer problems that may in time lead to even more far reaching consequences.